Tag Archives: Hyper-V

In the last couple of weeks I’ve been installing and configuring a System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 R2 (VMM) environment.

At first all management was done from the VMM management server and console access to VMs from VMM was working fine. Later on the VMM console (and appropriate rollup) were installed on the laptop directly. Then when he opened the VMM console as a regular user and entered the administrator credentials on the VMM console. All was fine until he tried to access the console of VMs from within VMM, because then for most (not all VMs) he received the following error:

Virtual Machine Manager lost the connection to the virtual machine for one of the following reasons.

Another connection was established to the console of this machineThe virtual machine has been shut down or put into the saved stateThe user credentials provided do not have the necessary privilege to connect

(0x0003, 0x0000)

Other connections were not established to the console of this machine and the virtual machine had also not been shut down or put into the saved state. The user credentials provided when connecting to VMM were of an administrator account with VMM admin permissions.

Since the administrator logs on to his laptop using a non-admin account, we first tried to run the VMM console “As Administrator” but this didn’t resolve the issue.

Then I googled the error and found this knowledge base article : VMM 2012 Self-Service users cannot open a console session to a virtual machine . The description didn’t really match our symptoms since the account specified to connect to VMM was an administrator account instead of a self-service user and it was possible to open a VM console session when the VMM console was opened from the VMM Management Server. To rule it out, we tested the proposed resolution and verified using Get-VMConnectAccess that everything was configured correctly.

The solution was to SHIFT+Rightclick on the VMM console shortcut and then choose “Run as different user” and enter the credentials of the administrator account. After that everything worked fine.

As some of you might know already, the Microsoft Ignite 2015 conference has started where Microsoft talks about where they’re going and what they’re doing. I watched the keynote, took many notes and added other relevant information which I’m sharing with you. Since so much was told and shown it’s certain I’ve missed stuff. As time goes by I will update the information in this post so it can be used as a reference.

I hope it’s useful. If you find any errors or have other useful resources or feedback, please leave a comment.

Update log:

-05-05-2015: Created Initial version including the keynote and additional information.

Windows Update will not only deliver updates, but also operating system updates

Updates will not be delivered to everyone at the same time. Deployment rings are used to determine when which software will be deployed to who. This is similar to how the Windows 10 preview build updates are being deployed.

Windows Update for business

Microsoft committed to keeping your devices secure

Compared to by example Google that does not commit to keeping Android devices secure.

Delivers ongoing innovation and security updates

Requires Windows 10

IT controls

Distribution rings

Maintenance windows

Peer-to-peer delivery

Integrated with existing tools (SCCM/EMS)

Unclear yet if IT controls also integrates with WSUS or something similar to control which updates/innovations are deployed.

Data Leakage Protection (DLP) on iPad: Not being able to copy/paste corporate data from a corporate app to a non-corporate/peronal app (by example Twitter), while allowing it between corporate apps like Outlook (version with these capabilities coming in Q2) and Word.

Policy in Windows 10 can be configured to warn about copying data from corporate app to non-corporate app, but still allow it and logging the event.

Supports multiple identities while still enforcing security and not allowing to copy corporate data between them.

Nano Server is a remotely administered server operating system optimized for hosting in private clouds and datacenters. It is similar to Windows Server in Server Core mode, but markedly smaller. Also, there is no local logon capability, nor does it support Terminal Services. It takes up far less disk space, sets up significantly faster, and requires far fewer restarts than Windows Server.

Office Delve surfaces personalized content to you from across Office 365. Powered by the Office Graph, Delve shows you information based on what you’re working on and what’s trending around you – across Office 365.

Unfortunately I’ve received numerous requests for an exam dump of 74-409 which really upsets me.

For those that are not aware of it, you are not allowed to share or use exam dumps. “If Microsoft learns that a candidate used a “brain dump” site to prepare for an exam, this candidate will be permanently banned or prohibited from taking any future Microsoft Certification exams and may be decertified from the Microsoft Certification Program. In addition, test scores and certifications, if applicable, may be revoked. These actions may be taken even if the candidate did not intend to defraud the Microsoft Certification Program.”

Real life or virtual meetings, presentations and user groups. Microsoft has started a Microsoft User Group Portal wiki, but unfortunately it’s not widely being used yet. Therefore I suggest searching the internet or taking a look at the Microsoft Events website.

Your own lab to work with the products. You can use the existing Microsoft Test Lab Guides (TLG) or if you don’t have the hardware for your lab, just browse the document.

Training videos. By example on YouTube, or from commercial companies like CBT Nuggets and PluralSight. Nowadays you can get monthly subscriptions or just get trials for a couple of days to help you get a good start.

The recordings for “Using Microsoft VDI to Enable New Workstyles Jump Start” are available now on Microsoft Virtual Academy (MVA).

These Jump Starts are a great way to quickly get up-to-date about a subject. Also there’s a great team of people working behind the scenes to answer questions and provide more detailed resources. Other attendees often also share their experiences and provide valuable insights. So be sure to check out the Q&A log as well.

I’ve attended a couple of Jump Starts and I think it’s a great way to quickly get up-to-date about a subject. Also there’s a great team of people working behind the scenes to answer questions and provide more detailed resources. Other attendees often also share their experiences and provide valuable insights.

In the beginning of June, the new Intel Haswell CPUs will be available. Besides the regular improvements like being faster, having better energy efficiency and having better graphics capabilities, these new CPUs will also include VMCS shadowing (Virtual Machine Control Structure Shadowing).

Basically it’s a feature that allows you to run a hypervisor (like VMware, Hyper-V, Xen Server) and create another hypervisor as a VM beneath it. This is also called nested virtualization.

Some of you might say, “Hey this is not new, I’ve already done this with VMware!”. The difference however is that the current method uses some sort of emulation that does not directly access the hardware. And even though it’s great for testing purposes, the performance is suboptimal.

With the embedded hardware supported VMCS shadowing in the new Intel Haswell CPU the nested hypervisor can directly access the hardware, which should improve performance. Also, it might even make it possible to use non-VMware hypervisors in a nested virtualization scenario.

Of course as always, we’ll just have to wait and see how the performance will be in real-life. It’s also not clear to me yet if hypervisors need to be updated to be able to leverage this option. Nonetheless, to me it sounds very promising and I look forward to playing around with it.